Comment by specialist
4 years ago
> ...pull out the HD. I beat it with the handle, like a good 10 times...
Heh. Nice.
A coworker's Mac wouldn't boot. I couldn't hear the hard drive. It was a model with the tip of the spindle exposed. I found a pencil with a gummy eraser. Gave the spindle a twist as I turned the power on.
Told the amazed user, "Do not turn off your computer until after you have backed up your data. That probably won't work twice."
Good times.
Had a similar experience with the external HDD of a friend of a friend.
HDD wouldn't be recognized, sticking my ear to it i could only hear the motor emit a beep-like sound, no spin up.
Her masters thesis on it, inaccessible, i've opened up the case, removed the HDD, unscrewed the top and there was the drive arm, stuck in the mid of the platters...
Took a Torx screwdriver, turned the platters backwards and unstuck the drive arm...
Copied all data off of it and sent here to the nearest computer hardware store to get another drive...
Master thesis was successfully recovered!
Just for the sake of clarification, where was the Torx screw located? The spindle axis or the drive arm axis? (Or somewhere else?) And how did you unstick the drive arm without allowing the head to contact platters? Just trying to visualize, and failing badly.
Also, awesome ;)
iirc, that was on the spindle axis - i only was gently pushing the drive arm near its supporting point to avoid it touching the platters (chances are i did make it touch the platters)...
Mind you, this was not in a clean room and i tried to be as quick as possible to not allow too much dust into the case..
Here's an online article, might even be the same drive (this was a external WD drive, not sure about the capacity, i think 500GB or 1TB): https://dataanalyzers.com/external-hard-drive-western-digita...
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It probably would. Static friction is a lot harder to overcome than dynamic friction in terms of torque.